by Maria Farrer
Mum comes and sits opposite me and pushes a cup of coffee in my direction. She stretches her hand towards me and thumbs away a tear from my face. I lean back out of her reach.
“I’ve just checked the number of new donors from your campaign,” she says quietly. “Three hundred and sixty five – that’s one for each day of the year. Fantastic, isn’t it?”
I shrug and Mum takes my hand. It is so unexpected, I almost pull it away, but she’s gripping tight.
“What you have done is very special,” she says. “And very brave. You’re braver than your dad and me – you know that don’t you?”
Her words find a spot in my brain that’s been ignored for a while. My resistance fades a little.
“And it’s made me think,” she says. “I’ve had a chat to Siân and she’s going to put me on to someone who’s going to help me – you know – with my drinking.” Mum bites her bottom lip, her eyes examining mine for a reaction. I let the words settle. Perhaps I frown as I try to work out exactly what she’s saying.
“I’ve been a terrible mum. I know that. Grief makes you do stupid things– makes us do stupid things. You, me, Dad. Look at us! Then you stand up on that stage and talk to all those people about what is important in life and you tell them your story. That can’t have been easy for you and it was an inspiration. You’ve done something to make life better again. Now I have to do the same. It’s not going to be easy for me either, and I may get worse before I get better, but I’m going to try.”
Mum has tangled her fingers with mine. Behind the fragile face, I see the old mum looking at me, a steely determination in her eyes. I could tell her that nothing we do will make life better again, that none of it is worth it, but that wouldn’t be fair. I don’t believe she’s got it in her to kick the booze, but I’m not going to put her off trying.
“Amber?”
I shake myself out of my thoughts. “That’s brilliant, Mum.”
“I’ll need your help. I know it’s a lot to ask.” She’s pulling and crunching my fingers between hers. Demanding.
I nod and try to smile while despair drains my last drop energy. Some part of me feels responsible for Mum’s drinking. My failure to talk to Liam and find out what was happening; taking his stone; Liam having a genetic heart defect and not me. If anything I did contributed to Liam’s death then it also contributed to Mum becoming an alcoholic. I want to help her, but I don’t want it to be my fault if she doesn’t get better. I don’t know if I can deal with that. I fight the urge to disentangle my hand from hers. It’s going to be tough for her. The dark shadows under her eyes remind me of Tyler’s beaten-up face. Am I somehow responsible for that too?
The door opens and Dad comes into the kitchen, dropping his holdall as he takes in the scene in front of him: Mum and me holding hands across the table. I wait for him to go into the other room, but he doesn’t. He pulls up a third chair.
“I’ve just been talking to Siân,” he says.
“You as well?” I ask. I can’t quite keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
“She’s had a message from Dr Levine.”
Mum smiles. “Three hundred and sixty five new donors. Isn’t that marvellous.”
Dad nods slowly. Then the nod turns to a shake. “It’s Jeremy,” he says. “I’m afraid he’s not winning.”
I can tell Dad is trying to tell me kindly. He adds his hands into the middle and I look at him, waiting for more. “His condition has deteriorated. He’s being transferred. But he wanted you to know that he is very grateful for what you’ve done. They all are. Dr Levine said I must tell you that.”
I stare helplessly at our three pairs of hands in the middle of the table.
“He can’t die,” I say. “I promised … he can’t…”
“He’s still alive,” says Mum. “You mustn’t give up hope yet – none of us must give up hope.”
“Mum’s right,” says Dad.
“But it’s all my fault. Everything is my fault.”
“Of course it’s not your fault,” says Dad. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s me. Don’t you see? I’m a disaster.” I wrench my hands away and use them to cover my face, screwing my eyes tight shut beneath my fingers. “I can’t do anything right. I can’t even win a stupid race.”
Dad kneels on the floor beside me. I can feel his breath close to me. He takes me in his arms and I don’t resist. “Is that really what you think?” he says. “Never, ever think that. None of this is your fault.”
“You’re wrong. You don’t know anything.”
“I suppose you’re right about that. I don’t know much, but I do know this – you are not to blame. If anyone is to blame for all this, it’s me.” He folds his arms around me and my body collapses against his. He holds me so tightly, he squeezes the breath out of me. “I didn’t know how hard this would be,” he says. “No one prepares you for losing a child.” He takes some great gasping breaths. “I’ve said and done some terrible things. I know I have. I’ve been busy trying to survive, but I haven’t been surviving – not really – I’ve just been … I don’t know … hiding. He pushes me away a little, looking at me and then Mum. “I’ve been a terrible father and a terrible husband.”
Mum nods very slightly, her mouth tight.
“I should’ve realized, should’ve listened,” he says, pressing me closer to him again. “Instead I’ve made a complete mess of everything and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” He holds me steady as a rock. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“I wanted to win for you but I couldn’t,” I sob into his shirt. “I wanted Mum to get better. I didn’t mean to get into trouble or for Gran to have a heart attack or for Granddad to get cancer and die. I should’ve talked to Liam before. I should’ve known there was something wrong. I should never have…” I stop myself before mentioning the stone. I still don’t have the courage to tell them that.
My chin finds a place to rest on Dad’s chest. I breathe in his smell, feel his warmth. Dad is hugging me. For the first time since Liam died, Dad is hugging me. And he’s sobbing. And Mum too.
And that’s how Gran finds us, clinging to each other for dear life.
It’s kind of strange getting to know your parents again. They’re a different Mum and Dad to the ones I knew before. We’ve got a lot of learning to do – there’s no instant fix for a year of damage. It’s my campaign that holds us together. Something outside of us that we can all get behind. Jeremy is still hanging in there, though his circulation is now controlled by some machine outside his body.
It makes me stronger, knowing how he’s fighting. That’s maybe what has brought me here, to see Tyler. I haven’t told anyone what I’m doing and I’ve no idea if it is the right thing. All I know is I have to do it.
My own heart gives an extra beat as I see his car approaching. I know he’s seen me. He parks and I walk towards him. He leans over and opens the passenger door, the effort, apparently, making him wince with pain. He’s expecting me to get in, but I stand by the open door, cautious. Simon’s managed to sow enough doubt to stop me taking any unnecessary chances: this will be done on my terms.
“It’s all right. I promise nothing will happen,” he says.
“You promised stuff before. Why should I believe you now?”
Tyler shakes his head. He’s in an awkward position, diagonally across the passenger seat and cranking his neck up so he can see my face through the open door. That gives me an advantage.
“Things have changed,” he says. “They’ve got Declan banged up. He’s got a list of previous that’d stretch half way to Russia.” He pushes himself back up to the sitting position and stares straight forward through the windscreen.
I suppose that’s supposed to make me feel better, but I still have no proof that Tyler is telling the truth.
“Give me the car keys,” I say.
Ty
ler shrugs, pulls them out of the ignition and throws them on to the passenger seat. I get in the car and shut the door.
“I should’ve told the police right at the start,” I say. “I was a coward.”
“No, you weren’t. Declan doesn’t make idle threats – you were right to be scared.”
“He said he wouldn’t touch you if I kept my mouth shut. I did keep my mouth shut and look what he did.”
Tyler’s damaged body, up close, is a sickly mess of purples and yellows. It’s healing, but it must have been bad.
“I’m glad you didn’t go to the police,” he says. “If you’d grassed on me, I wouldn’t have had the chance to do it myself. I needed to make that decision. I needed to show Declan he couldn’t control me for ever. People like Declan pick on people like us; scoop us up when we’re at rock bottom and then do what they want with us. There was never going to be a way out. Not until I broke the deal.”
“So what changed?”
“You.”
The intensity is back in Tyler’s eyes.
“I want to give you this,” he says. He seems uneasy.
He puts a crumpled piece of paper on to my lap. It’s not what I was hoping for. I recognize it immediately. It’s an organ donor registration form. It looks as though it’s been screwed up in his pocket for a month. I smooth it out then stare down at it. The form is completely blank apart from Tyler’s name.
“Is this supposed to be funny?” I ask.
Tyler’s face darkens. “I thought you could fill it in for me.”
“Fill it in yourself. It’s your body.”
Tyler stares at his hands and takes a deep breath.
“I can’t.”
“It’s not that hard.”
“I can’t.”
I give an exasperated sigh. I’m fed up with Tyler playing games with me.
“I can’t read or write, OK? I’m dyslexic or whatever they call it. Like my dad. Kelly too, but she’s not as bad.” He’s hunched in on himself now. Avoiding my gaze.
I try to rearrange what I know about Tyler. “But you and Liam were always working on some project or other. I thought – I mean I thought you were really clever.”
“I am clever. I just can’t read and write. It’s different.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.” I feel terrible now. “You should’ve told me before.”
“Like I want everyone to know?”
I think back to Tyler at school. I know he was always in trouble and I remember Kelly calling him a dumb-arse, but that’s what most people call their brothers. He’s tapping the steering wheel fast with both his hands. Like a time bomb counting down.
“You’ve no idea what it’s like. Being in the classroom day after day. Struggling to work out the words, fighting to put anything on paper. It’s shit, I’m telling you. I would have been chucked out long before if it hadn’t been for Liam being my school mentor. He helped with my work and he got me into running – he said it would get rid of my excess energy so I’d get less angry. He was the only person who understood– the only one who helped. He made life bearable and then he died.”
The finality of it all fills the silence.
I’m angry at myself and stunned at how little I know about Tyler; amazed at the secrets people manage to keep.
“Just give me my keys and I’ll go,” says Tyler. “This was a mistake.”
I ram the keys firmly in my pocket. I’m not ready for him to go yet.
“Is that what Liam was going to tell me – on the day he died?” I ask. “Is that why he was shutting me out so much – to protect you, because you didn’t want people to know?”
Tyler manages a small smile. “In a way, yes. There’s a bit more to it than that.”
I wait for the bit more, but Tyler covers his face with his hands and the silence stretches and stretches. Finally he puts his hands on his lap and turns to me. “If I tell you everything, you promise you won’t judge me?”
“I’m not promising anything, but I’ll try.”
“And not here. This isn’t the right place.”
I weigh up my options, take his keys from my pocket and hand them to him. He switches on the engine, puts the car into gear and we start to drive. For all I know he could be driving me straight back into trouble.
The cemetery is open at this time of day and we stroll in. We don’t go to Liam’s grave but sit on a wooden seat. There’s no one else around. Tyler fiddles and fiddles with his fingers, his nails bitten to pieces. I keep thinking he’s going to start talking, but then he doesn’t.
I force myself to be patient.
“I’ve moved back in with Sonia and Kelly,” he says, eventually.
“Oh – right.” This doesn’t seem such a big deal.
Tyler shrinks into himself, wrapping his arms around his front. “The police must have got information from someone. They came looking for me. When I told Declan, he lost it; beat me up; cracked two of my ribs. I had to call Kelly. Sonia made me go to the hospital. There were more questions, of course. I decided to tell the police everything. Sonia said she knew someone would beat some sense into me one day and I suppose she was right.” He allows himself a stiff smile. “She’s a nice lady, she’s looked after me. But most of all, I didn’t want Declan to get to you.”
“Thank you,” I whisper. I don’t know what else to say.
“All those things you said about Declan – you were right.”
I shake my head. I’m not sure if I feel sorry for Tyler or plain frustrated. “I can’t understand what you were doing hanging out with him in the first place? Anyone could see he was trouble.”
“You see what you want to see. He was nice to me in the beginning. I liked the fact he was from out of town; that he didn’t know anything about me or Liam or what happened. He introduced me to his mates. They were friendly. It gave me something else to think about. Dad was in prison, I’d been thrown out of school, Sonia more or less kicked me out of home. I didn’t have any money, anywhere to go, and I was lonely.”
The leaves on the trees are just beginning change colour. I notice this as I listen to Tyler, as I try to absorb the information he’s giving me.
“So you were telling the truth – about Liam never knowing him?”
“Yes. I didn’t meet Declan ’til weeks after Liam had died.” His eyes meet mine and I know he isn’t lying. And I’m so grateful. He rubs the palms of his hands up and down his thighs, the material of his jeans rucking up under the pressure.
“I started doing stuff with them – you know, stealing – small first, then bigger. Declan was clever. He kind of sucked us all in. Things felt good.”
I remember Simon using those exact words. Sucked in.
“Didn’t it worry you, doing all this stuff?”
Tyler’s eyes are everywhere as he speaks. “I was brought up on stolen goods. I got a buzz when I was with Declan. And I was good at it. That’s what Declan told me; I knew the area and I was fast – he liked that – the fact that I could run fast. It felt good to be appreciated, good to be needed. Declan gave a reason to wake up in the morning. He looked after me.”
This is not what I want to hear, not what I want to believe.
Suddenly Tyler flops forward as if the fight has gone out of him.
“Yeah, of course it worried me,” he says gruffly. “Somewhere deep down. But you don’t always think about who you’re hurting, do you? I didn’t much care about anyone else, I was in it for me.”
“So what changed?”
Tyler turns his head to look at me. “I wasn’t playing by the rules. Declan told me if I didn’t keep my side of the bargain, I was out. He said he wasn’t a free meal ticket. That’s when he started hassling me.”
“What rules? What do you mean ‘out’?”
“Declan takes care of me, I take ca
re of Declan. Or else I’m out of his cosy little gang, out of his inner circle, out of the caravan.” Tyler’s heel bounces up and down on the ground.
“But I thought it was your aunt’s caravan. Declan couldn’t throw you out of that.” Tyler gives me a miserable look. “It wasn’t your aunt’s?”
He shakes his head. “I relied on Declan for everything. I couldn’t survive without him – or that’s what he told me. It was payback time and Declan was calling in the favours.”
“What did he want from you?”
Tyler thrusts his hands into his pockets and stands up in one swift movement. He walks away about five steps and then turns round and comes back to the seat. The story so far hasn’t been easy to listen to and I get the feeling it’s about to get a whole lot worse. I can see he’s struggling to find the words.
“Declan had this deal going about girls. What was ours was his. He expected us to provide him with – you know…”
I struggle to fill in the gap. Does he mean what I think he means?
“Like Joel and Becky. Becky was Joel’s girlfriend and that gave Declan the right to be with her whenever he wanted. It was part of the deal. That’s how it worked.”
“But that’s….” I’m speechless again. I think back to Joel and Becky and now I see it all. “But I thought Becky liked Declan. She seemed willing enough. Encouraged him, even.”
“Yeah – she did. She’d do anything for him and he had no respect for her whatsoever. None. He was bored with her. He was ready for something new and I was supposed to provide it. The trouble is, I didn’t have a girlfriend. And that didn’t suit Declan one bit. No girlfriend equalled no money, no drugs, nowhere to live. I needed a girlfriend – for Declan.”
I try to make sense of what he’s telling me. “Let me get this right. Are you saying that if I was your girlfriend, Declan would expect me to sleep with him whenever he wanted and you’d have to be OK with that? Is that what you’re saying?” I’m leaning forward so my face is close to Tyler’s. I need to be sure there’s no misunderstanding.